Outlook: Rant Buddies Value Or Not Back in the day of the written letter, people might have been advised to put certain types of letters in a desk drawer for a few days before mailing it, you know, the emotional ones, the accusatory ones, or anything that might serve to offend or upset the recipient. The thought being, of course, that if you think about what you wrote for a few days, you might decide that discretion really is the better part of valor and that you should throw it in the trash instead of in the mailbox.

Today, many folks use "Rant Buddies." Some recommend that whenever you write one of those types of emails, send it to your "Rant Buddy" instead of the people to whom it was written. The premise is that it's better to vent a rant off of each other than to send it to someone for whom it was really written. They say that this is not only a good way to put a letter into the cyber desk drawer, but it may provide a good laugh between the two of them.

One employee reports, "The last time I sent my 'Rant Buddy' one of my rants, his reply the next day was 'Cool rant dude.' Of course, the rant went no further, but I was still able to get it out of my system by writing the email.

Writing a rant is one thing” and it oftentimes provides some self-satisfaction by simply writing it” but sending it is another".

I see several things wrong with this approach:

1. What a colossal waist of time! Evidently, these two yoyos don't have enough to do! What kind of work ethic do we see here!

2. What ever happened to the "Golden Rule", do unto others as you would have them do to you! Does anyone even know what the "Golden Rule" is anymore?

3. The Freudian Slip: Example, Bob and Fred, two very young former sales reps, were passing the time ripping a difficult customer via private emails to each other. They said some terrible things and used language that would make a prison yard dog blush. Ya that bad!.

Suddenly, Fred noticed their customer's email address on the CC line. Freudianly, they included their customer in every nasty email. Oooops!

The two "Rant Buddies" cost the company a half million a year in business, and their jobs.

4. Murphy's Law: Just because you send an email to someone you presently trust doesn't mean that the email might not surface again at the worst possible time and place. Carpenter's rule “Measure twice Cut once”, Think before your write or hit send!